


First There Was

by ImagineDragonflys



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Good Cows, M/M, attempt at hurt/comfort that ended up being more of a martin character study/fluff, jonny sims please let them be happy im begging you, plots youve seen a million times before, post-MAG 159
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21911596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImagineDragonflys/pseuds/ImagineDragonflys
Summary: After the Lonely, there's a lot to process. And Martin isn't sure he remembers how to be a person yet.[aka another story about the road trip to Scotland and the associated mess of feelings that comes from being saved from a fear dimension by the power of love]
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 21
Kudos: 182





	First There Was

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a few inconsistencies since I'm American and don't /get/ UK geography or there might be some minor plot stuff I didn't account for but hopefully it's alright! This is my first tma fic so I'm still working out characterization. Hope you enjoy!

Breathing is supposed to be easy. People say something is “as easy as breathing” when they mean it's perfectly natural, that it takes no forethought, no effort. For God’s sake, it’s one of the few things that are absolutely necessary for life that you don’t even have to pay for. It’s meant to be subconscious. Something most people are lucky enough to take for granted. Martin’s having a rough go about it. Apparently he’s the only person in the world who’s come to the glaring and terrifying realization that one can forget how to breath (given said person been through a very specific set of traumatic and life-threatening experiences). Or, more precisely, that one can forget how to breathe without having to walk oneself through the whole agonizing process over and over again. 

The first thing Martin did when Jon pulled them out of the Lonely was take a deep full breath, free of fog, letting it fill his chest. He realized soon after though that it wasn’t just those first shaky breaths he’d needed to consciously take, it was all of them. Had he not been so overwhelmed by all the color and the dampness of the air as it filled his lungs and the panic that was starting to seep back into now that he wasn’t just nothing anymore, well if not for all those things he might’ve noticed that he was still holding Jon’s hand. Or rather that Jon was holding his hand, a vice grip that had he been a bit more present might’ve even been a little painful. As it was, though, Martin could only focus on continuing to take deep breaths and none of them felt as if they could fill his lungs. All he could feel was the shuttering cold air against his throat and the press of each footstep making contact with solid ground. He didn’t even know where they were.

That was then, now it’s later. Martin’s not sure how much time has passed. They left… wherever they’d been after the Lonely. Not the Institute, Martin didn’t think, but somewhere else. Somewhere dark. They might’ve gone to an apartment at one point. Jon’s? It was all a bit fuzzy. Hard to focus when breathing is taking every ounce of attention. He doesn’t know what would happen if he stopped thinking about it, maybe instinct would kick back in or maybe he’d find himself falling back into the nothingness. Not worth any chances. 

They’re in a car, (Jon’s? Did Jon own a car?) driving through the countryside toward… Somewhere. Jon probably told him but everything sounds muffled at the moment, like when you’ve just left a concert and everything feels like it's running through water. Not that Martin had done anything like that in a long while. Martin notices absently that there’s music playing softly or it could be normal volume though he doesn’t see Jon as the kind of person to play music too loud in the car. It’s at this thought that he suddenly remembers that he’s with Jon. Not that he’d forgotten exactly but between the effort it was taking to breathe and the deafening quiet it was taking all of his effort not to just be overcome by the gapping pit that seemed to be pulling him apart from the inside. A black hole that led to endless fog and damp sand. The air around him felt so empty except- well, except for Jon. He looks over at Jon now, his brow furrowed as he stares down the road with an anxious and intense energy that might make Martin nervous had he not been so utterly zapped of emotion. 

Jon didn’t seem to notice Martin was staring so he allowed himself to do it in a way he hadn’t in a long time and felt slightly more himself with each passing second. He notices absently that Jon was holding his hand. Martin couldn’t remember if he’d even let go since they’d gotten out of the Lonely. Jon’s hand felt warm in his, his fingers still wrapped tightly around Martin’s own like he’s afraid Martin will slip away if he loosens his grip. Truthfully, Martin’s afraid of that too. He feels grounded there like Jon is tethering him to the earth. Absentmindedly, he rubs his thumb along the back of Jon’s hand and he feels Jon jolt at the action. In a moment of panic he starts to pull his hand away before Jon quickly squeezes his hand impossibly tighter. Jon’s looking at him now, in brief glances as he tries to keep his eyes trained on the road but there’s much clearer worry on his face now. A soft kind of worry that reaches his eyes in a way Martin has only recently started to become familiar with.

“Alright?” Jon says as his eyes flick away from the road once again. Martin starts to reply but the words just fizzle out and Jon exhales, shaking his head slightly, “Right, I suppose not.”

And Martin wants to say something. Say anything, really. There are a million questions swirling in his head but putting any of them to words just feels beyond him. He feels more real than he had in the Lonely but still nowhere near real enough to make words. Besides, whatever conversation followed those questions was certainly not one he was equipped for at the moment. Instead, he focused on breathing, that was something he could do even if it took effort. He can’t stop looking at Jon’s hand wrapped around his. It’s a strange feeling and he briefly remembers how much he’d wanted this once, how much he might still want this once he remembers how to do more than blink and breathe and _be._ It makes him almost lightheaded or more so than he already was. Because Jon was here. Jon had come for him. Had _saved_ him. 

And he doesn’t mean to overthink it he truly doesn’t. But the undeniable softness in Jon’s eyes was making his stomach do a strange acrobatics routine and Jon seemed to grab his hand so casually like he knew Martin needed it (like maybe he needed it too). He’d taken Martin with him when he hadn’t needed to. Peter Lukas was gone and Martin was in no immediate danger, not like Jon, but Jon hadn’t even stopped to question it, just tugged Martin along on this journey to the middle of nowhere with him. He’d forgotten to pack himself a toothbrush but he’d brought Martin. Or there was the way chunks of what Jon had said to him in the Lonely would push their way to the front of his mind, so clearly he knew there was no way he had imagined them. How he could still feel Jon’s hand on his cheek as he asked, pleaded with Martin to see him. How “I thought you might be lost” almost sounded like, “I thought I’d lost you”. And it makes hope swell in Martin’s heart. Something fresh and fragile but it’s more than just hope, it feels real. Makes _him_ feel real. There’s that ever-present needle of doubt prickling in painfully at the edges, trying desperately to seep its venom into him. He tries his best not to let it, lets the comfort of Jon’s hand in his push it away. 

More words slip through his mind as if the events in the Lonely are finally catching up to him. Echos of Jon yelling for him, Peter Lukas’s monotone echoing around him, reverberances of things he had said himself. Everything he’d heard finally slipping from processing to complete, like his mind could finally latch onto it. 

“ _This isn’t_ you,” he remembers Jon saying. And for a moment the panic wells in him again, the conversation echoing around his mind just like it had in the Lonely only louder. But, wait-

Unwittingly, Martin says the first words he’s said since they’d escaped, “Shit.”

It’s not loud but Jon looks toward him with panic in his eyes.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Martin stumbles over his words they don’t feel quite right as he tries to speak like there’s not enough air to inflate them, “Nothing! Sorry- I- I didn’t mean to freak you out. It’s like, like my brain just turned back on. Rebooted. S-sorry, I promise it’s nothing.”

A lie, it is something. But it’s one of the many somethings he is decidedly not in any state to talk about right now.

Jon looks at him quizzically and doesn’t say anything. Martin takes a deep shaking breath, they’re starting to get easier again but he still has to think about it. The feeling of sunken lead in his chest hasn’t alleviated but it seems as though he’s past the point of wheezing for breath. Slight progress, he supposes. The questions buzzing around his mind get louder and he decides to start with something easy. 

“Um, where are we going?” Martin asks a little sheepishly, his voice not quite sounding like his own. For a moment he’s afraid Jon will criticize him, _I’ve already told you, Martin. Try to keep up._

Instead, Jon loosens his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and without looking at him replies, “Daisy’s got a safe house, we’re going there and then… Well I don’t quite know what we’ll do then.”

He’s lost his normal affect, Martin notices. Not that he’d used it much when he’d spoken to Martin recently (not that he’d spoken to Martin much lately, he reminds himself). But the lack of harshness and formality in his tone wasn’t something Martin was used to.

“Right.” He says simply. Like he knows what’s going on. Like this is a normal thing to be doing. Like there’s not an extremely non-zero possibility Elias is looking for them right now. His eyes widened at that thought, “Oh my God.”

Martin looks at Jon as he speaks, watches Jon’s eyes flick back and forth from the road to his face at a rate that meant he probably wasn’t comprehending much of either, “Elias he- I mean, Jonah Magnus is,” he huffs trying to find the words in his foggy brain, “The panopticon. Elias he’s- he’s Jonah Magnus. Or, I guess, Jonah is Elias?”

He waits for a reaction but Jon just nods and Martin feels a quick flash of embarrassment, “Right, you Know.”

Jon looks tense as he speaks, “I didn’t. Not before but when I was- When I went to find you at the panopticon, but once I got there…”

“You saw Elias?” Panic plain on his face.

Jon nods again, “He let me go.”

“That’s not exactly comforting.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.”

They lull back into silence after that, Martin watching out the window. Trying to find a balance between remembering to breathe but not overthinking it, trying to remind himself that the color isn’t fading from the world and that though the sky is overcast, it’s wide and open and not pressing in around him. He knows he should ask, _What are we going to do?_ But he doesn’t think either of them has much of an idea. Wouldn’t help at this point anyway. All they can do now is drive. The music has faded out, they must be out of range from whatever station Jon had on and he’d made no effort to change it to another. So they sat in the cramped silence with the car engine whirring at a volume that was just loud enough to keep the quiet from becoming suffocating. He wants to talk, desperately wants to know more, hear more, just to have more proof that he is here. Reassurance that this is real. That Jon is here and with him. That he’s not gone hollow and ghostly.

He clears his throat lightly, “B-Basira, Daisy, Melanie, did they- are they okay?”

He notices Jon’s eyes narrow slightly as he says that. He responds slowly, softly, not in a way that feels condescending, just gentle. Martin thinks he sounds tired, “I don’t know. I only talked to Basira briefly and she didn’t seem to be… It wasn’t good when I left but she was alive. She only told me where to go and hung up. And Daisy… I know even less. I don’t- I didn’t sound good when I last saw her.”

Jon takes a steadying breath but doesn’t continue.

“And Melanie?” The worry in his voice is getting more prevalent.

Again, Jon glances at him. This time more curiously than worried, “You don’t know?’

His stomach drops, “What?”

“She left. It was- well it was a few weeks ago now.”

Martin can’t quite understand what he’s hearing, “She- what?” And the other shoe drops, “Oh. _Oh._ Jesus. Is she okay?” 

_How did I not know?_

“As well as she can be, last I saw her.” The open concern on his face might have in another time made Martin envious. A far different time. Now Martin only feels relief as Jon continues, “She’s in good hands, at least.”

Jon doesn’t elaborate on what that means and Martin doesn’t ask. His head is spinning.

Not long after they decide it would be best if they stopped for some semblance of a meal. By Martin’s estimate, it had been almost 24 hours since he had headed down into the tunnels and he’d not eaten in almost a day before that. Didn’t each much at all, really. For the first time in months, he started to feel hunger start to seep in. He wonders absently if Jon even needs to eat anymore. If the statements alone were enough. That might become a problem soon, he realizes but pushes it away. Another problem for later. For now his priorities were set. Food.

“Only another hour or so before we’ll be at Daisy’s,” Jon says as he pulls into a dingy roadside deli. They’re still in the middle of the countryside and though it goes unspoken it’s clear neither of them is too keen on going anywhere they’d have to sit down and stay for any prolonged period of time.

Martin doesn’t even look at the menu just seconds whatever Jon orders and they quickly collect their food and start to head back to the car. The sun is setting now, turning the clouds a shade of ruddy pink that he’d normally find lovely but instead finds unsettling. His eyes dart past the few surrounding buildings over the open fields, scanning for some kind of danger when he freezes, yanking Jon to a stop by their still-linked hands.

“Jon.”

“What?” he sounds on edge.

Martin starts pulling him toward the field, away from the car. Jon makes a sound of protest but doesn’t pull away. Martin tilts his head toward the field as he glances back at Jon, not quite smiling but the corners of his mouth upturned just slightly, “Cows.”

For a moment, it looks as if Jon is going to tell him to stop, they really don’t have time for this they both know. But he doesn’t say anything, just continues to look at Martin with that same painfully open expression and lets Martin lead him toward the fence.

Without much effort, Martin coaxes the cows over to the fence, cooing at them and gently running his hand over one's head before looking at Jon to see him standing tensely. Martin rolls his eyes and pulls Jon’s hand from his own and guides it over the fence.

Jon places his hand tentatively on the cow's head, not petting it so much as awkwardly resting his hand on its face. It’s disgustingly endearing and the pink light from the sunset makes Jon’s face look so much softer. And underneath the pit that seems to have taken up occupancy in his chest, Martin feels something shift. It’s both familiar and startling and underneath it all, he feels it like a swift bolt of electricity.

He doesn’t even realize he’s speaking until the words are out of his mouth, “I meant it, you know.”

Martin doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jon look so confused so many times in one day, his hand is still frozen on the cow's head and his mouth hangs open awkwardly, “Meant what, exactly?”

Martin is not a coward. But charging off into life-threatening, borderline demonic situations is a very different sort of danger from _feelings_ . Those dangers were less familiar. Even so, it seems trite to worry about things like that now. Martin is _tired_. Swanning about worrying about his feelings felt minuscule compared to the apocalyptic things they seemed to face every two weeks. He takes a deep breath and tries to speak as confidently as he can despite his lungs that seem to leak, “When you found me. I said,” Another deep breath for good measure, “I-said-I-loved-you. And, well, the Lonely had me and I know I said some things I didn’t mean, that it had convinced me were true but- I just want you to know I meant it.”

Jon blinks at him owlishly, it would be adorable if there wasn’t a deep panic rising in him as his moment of adrenaline fell away. Jon starts to open his mouth but Martin just plows on feeling the air run out of him like a dam had broken and he had to speak before there was nothing left, “I mean- I figured you already knew. From the tapes. Or just, well, everything. Felt like everyone knew for a while before I… You know. I, um, I thought I knew what I was going to say but it’s all just- it’s gone but yeah I- that. I meant that. I still mean that.”

Deep breath. Exhale. 

He looks at his feet suddenly feeling very stupid. This was the wrong time, the wrong everything. It probably hadn’t meant anything to Jon. Jon had probably already known just like everyone else and he’d saved Martin like he’d saved Daisy because he was good and that’s the kind of thing Jon does. And now everything was going to be uncomfortable. _Oh God, this was all a mistake._ Jon had taken him all the way out here and now-

Well now, Martin realized there was someone in his personal space. Very much in his personal space, in fact, realizing dumbstruck a moment later that Jon’s lips were pressed lightly against his own. It was awkward. The angle was wrong and Martin is too tall and Jon is too hesitant, Jon starts to pull away when Martin came back to himself. He shifts, leaned down toward Jon more, moved one of his limply dangling arms to cup on Jon’s face. This time their lips meet and it feels right. Warm. Nothing grandiose. No music swells but for a moment Martin feels completely anchored to himself, the empty space that threatens to pull him in filling with warmth before starting to dissipate. And then the kiss is over and Jon wraps his arms around Martin’s neck, pulling him into a tight hug. He notes almost as an afterthought that this was the second time Jon had hugged him in the last 24 hours, maybe the third time he’d hugged him _ever_. He almost laughs at the thought.

Martin pulled away just enough to look at Jon who was smiling unreservedly. Not grinning and the worry was still present in his locked shoulders and the ever-present creases in his forehead, but the softness in his eyes was finally decipherable as fondness. _Love_. Though Martin knew Jon wouldn’t say that, not in so many words, not now. But Martin looks at him and knows all he needs to know at that moment. 

There’s a pit in Martin that feels like it can never be filled. He feels like at any moment he could fade away. Like he could blink and find himself back in the nothing and the fog and not even care. But Jon is looking at him, holding him, and that must mean he’s real. Jon won’t let him fade out, he knows that.

 _I see you, Jon_ , the words echo in his mind. And he knows Jon sees him too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> idk why you'd want to but if you'd like you can follow me on twitter @sadgaytiefling or on tumblr @sheriffofmagic <3


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